Shak dwellers told to go

1999-06-01 04:00:00 PDT ALBANY -- ALBANY - On a landfill at the edge of the bay, a colony of 50 homeless people live with a million-dollar view and pennies in their pockets.

But this is no ordinary homeless encampment, no cardboard city of nomads. Many of the residents have lived here for years. Instead of makeshift shelters of sleeping bags and pitched blankets and cardboard boxes, many have built their own versions of low-income housing: shacks of plywood, some with windows, built-in kitchen cabinets and even carpeting.

One fellow has a working shower. A threesome who own a gasoline-powered generator have electricity, and watch TV and play movies on the VCR. But it is the veteran resident of eight years who really lives like a king, or was about to: He is building a two-story, heart-shaped castle made of concrete and stone, with an arched window for his unobstructed view of the Golden Gate Bridge.

The residents - some of whom claim college degrees and middle-class comforts in their past lives - say they've lived here blissfully among the overgrown brush and concrete hulks of demolished buildings, away from the pressures of urban life. To them, the landfill has been a refuge and a source of pride.

"I'm a Landfillian," said Dan McMullan, 36, introducing himself to Albany City Council members at a recent public hearing before pleading with them to let him and his homeless neighbors stay.

But the city of Albany, tired of the headaches this marginal community has brought - from sanitation and crime issues to complaints from its tax-paying joggers and dog walkers - has banned overnight stays at the landfill.

The landfill is to become a regional public park, part of the Eastshore State Park that stretches along the waterfront from Richmond to Emeryville.

The homeless residents have until June 15 to go.

The thought of leaving gives the homeless a sense of despair. They love this place: its rugged natural beauty, its isolation from a judgmental world, its sweeping views of San Francisco, the Golden Gate Bridge and Mount Tamalpais.

The landfill has spared them from an endless stream of doorways and shelters, and given them a place to call their own among their own.

"You build something out of the wilderness and make something for yourself out here," said Robert "The Rabbit" Barringer, 47, who says he has an art degree from UC-Berkeley and goes to work most days renovating other people's houses.

As they carve their own spots among the brush, go dumpster diving in town for lumber to build their homes, ferry their water from down the road, read by candlelight and cook by campfire, they say they feel like pioneers.

"They make us out like we're derelicts," said McMullan, who has been homeless since 1984, after losing his right leg in a motorcycle accident. "The people out here are the most resourceful of the poor, the strongest of the poor. The lazy can't make it out here."

The homesteaders have nicknamed their outpost The Freedom Colony, and have even designed a flag that hangs on a pole supported by twisted rebar. It is a U.S. flag minus its stars, edged with brown camouflage cloth. Written in the white stripes is a sentiment many hadn't felt in a while, until they came to live here:

"It's pretty sad we have to go," said Christopher Moser, 38, a former auto mechanic who repairs his neighbors' bicycles, the chief way of travel. "I feel at home here."

"She's not homeless," said Eddie, 10, overhearing a visitor and jumping to his mother's defense. "My mom has a home. That's her home over there," pointing to a plywood shack with a tarp roof.

"You tell your friends," she said, "your momma has a house with a million-dollar view."

Eddie and Williams' two other children live with her ex-husband. She visits them almost daily, driving her car, an old American gas-guzzler she's held onto from her working days. But she also has another family, here at the landfill.

Although each person is protective of his own space - visitors must call out into the brush and be welcomed before entering - there is a sense of community, especially in the area nearest to town, called The Plateau, where some of the newer arrivals live close together.

Williams' boyfriend, "Stark" Mike Martin, 49, uses his generator to recharge residents' batteries for their radios and flashlights. And before the city installed portable toilets a few months ago, he dealt with the buckets of human sewage at one of the outhouses.

Ashby Dancer, about 40, has built two houses for neighbors.

"Hmmm, I gotta fix this door," he said, showing off his handiwork. "I'm the landlord."

Lately, Dancer and McMullan have taken to grassroots politics to save the residents from eviction: calling activist groups, organizing a rally, advertising for a lawyer.

"They're making us homeless," said Dancer. "These are our homes. We're out of their faces. We're not in the street. We're not panhandling on their corners or sleeping in their doorways. We're not begging or stealing. . .

"This is bigger than just this piece of land. This is about homelessness in America. Every city in the nation should give homeless people land so they're off the streets and off the curbs and off the doorways. I built this one-bedroom all by myself for nothing, so I know there's such a thing as low-income housing if they want it. I know low-income housing is possible."

To talk with many of the homeless here is to wonder how they got in this mess. City officials and homeless advocates familiar with the residents say that some suffer from mental illness, and that drug and alcohol abuse is common.

Everyone has a sad tale. Often there is a turning point - an accident, a lost job, a failed relationship - that sent them tumbling.

"If for some reason you fall from grace, the city can be very unforgiving."

Unless you've ever been homeless, it's hard not to be judgmental, she said. Even when she worked with the homeless at the advocacy group, she couldn't really relate.

"It didn't occur to me," she said, "that it would occur to me."

Physically, the landfill - a peninsula jutting nearly a mile into the bay on the cusp of Albany, just west of I-80, behind the Golden Gate Fields racetrack - is like a place that time has forgotten, a wind-whipped jungle of untamed nature and construction debris.

Three areas distinguish it. Closest to Albany is The Plateau. Moving out toward the bay, the landfill narrows to what is called The Neck. Then it balloons to The Bulb, a mass of dense vegetation where most of the veteran residents live in seclusion.

A dumping ground until 1984 for leftover chunks of demolished buildings, the landfill will one day be a park. But that is years away, after much clean-up and planning, said Ned MacKay, spokesman for the East Bay Regional Parks District, and Ann Ritzma, the Albany assistant city administrator overseeing the landfill residents.

For years, the handful of early homeless settlers had most of the landfill to themselves and were largely ignored by Albany officials.

But last summer the population boomed to more than 100 as the homeless were swept from other encampments in Berkeley and Richmond. Several homeless said police told them to go to the Albany landfill rather than sleep in their doorways.

With no running water or toilets on the landfill, sanitation and health became concerns for officials, Ritzma said. Drug use was also a worry. And there were increased police calls - including an arson fire set by a landfill dweller trying to kill two neighbors.

In this solidly middle-class town of 17,000, such crimes were upsetting, said Chief Larry Murdo, who views the landfill residents as illegal squatters on public land.

Meanwhile, the completion of the Albany Waterfront Trail brought more joggers, dog walkers and bird-watchers to the landfill. Some complained to officials about finding discarded needles and packs of the homeless' dogs along the trails. And they felt reluctant to enjoy the wildflowers if it meant traipsing through somebody's yard.

After months of discussion, the city council in March banned overnight camping and gave June 15 as the deadline for the homeless to move out.

The city called Bay Area social service groups to help the homeless find other housing, said Ritzma.

But there is an acute shortage of shelter beds and low-income housing, said Alex McElree, 52, founder of Operation Dignity, an Oakland advocacy group which mostly targets homeless veterans. And those with substance abuse problems are unwelcome in shelters.

"I've never implied I could help everyone" at the landfill, said McElree. "It's not possible.

"You're gonna see some of them in the doorways, yeah."

D-Day is two weeks away. But few residents have any ideas what they will do.

Even as they face eviction, some are still building.

Moser and Paula Johnson, 33, who live together, are finishing an addition. Mark, 38, the veteran resident who wouldn't give his last name, hopes to finish his castle. McMullan and his girlfriend, Katy Blau, 36, just built a loft bed, giving them an upstairs and a downstairs. And they've added a window to view the San Francisco skyline from their bed at night.

"I figure it's just defeatist to stop building," said McMullan.

As the final days draw near, they're grateful for their time here.

"This experience has strengthened who I am, it hasn't debilitated me," said Johnson. "I still like me. I know I have lots of talents and qualities that are good and positive and endless." &lt;